


What Else is Left?

by ToodleOfDeeth



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: Angst, Gen, Surreal, no happy ending here mates, only a lil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToodleOfDeeth/pseuds/ToodleOfDeeth
Summary: “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” his reflection murmured, “Maybe you’ve become one.”





	What Else is Left?

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” his reflection murmured, “Maybe you’ve become one.”

Timms gripped the sink with both hands, staring into the plug hole. The inky blackness behind it contrasted with the neon lights of the room, but he couldn't help but think it fit the mood.

It’d been two years. Two long and strenuous years.

He blinked desperately, his head pounding. His lungs stuttered like each breath their last. His eyes watered but he couldn't tell if it was the alcohol, the drugs or the lateness. What time was it?

When the news came back, he thought it was another bill. Chucked on the kitchen table for an afternoon and a half. Left it stagnant and cold in the darkness of his apartment.

Now it felt like the letter was the only part of Lockwood left.

What else was there? Those fucking badges? His trainers he forgot to throw out after Uni ended?

Photographs?

Timms couldn't tell the time, his watch having four faces. But time didn't matter to him then. He knew it was late but going to work tomorrow was least of his troubles. Currently he needed to focus on the creeping high, not his job or his friends or his lovers or ex-lovers.

Or jobs he’s lost or his dead friends or the lovers he’d beaten or the lovers that had beaten him.

He needed to focus on the creeping high, not the numbness or the chill or the unforgiving porcelain of the sink or the thudding of the club just a room away.

Or the way the neon made his eyes hollow and dead looking, or the way the neon made him look five hundred years old, or the way the neon made him feel as dead and buried as-

He slumped, his arm spasming, his legs shaking.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the reflection murmured, “Maybe you’ve become one.”

The drugs had been there for him. Holding his head up on the back-breaking days after. Wiping his mouth clean of the sickness he felt. They’d got his feet back on the floor after a week in bed. They got him to forget the things that didn't matter anymore. They had helped him shake off the hands of doubt.

But the hands were still there - still waiting for when the drugs were too much or not enough or just not there.

He gasped. His lungs filled with fluid. He gasped again, the knot in his neck refusing to go down.

“What's left of you?” asked the mirror. “I suppose you're in want of answers. But all i have are questions for a man like you.”

Although he was never there to see or hear or smell or taste he still feels like he could see it all:

Taste the copper in his mouth.

Smell the gunpowder.

Hear the noise of bones breaking.

See Lockwood, smothered in his own blood, lying still, silent, and crying in the mud.

Timms looked up, eyes swampy and unfocused. The figure in the mirror wasn't looking at him, instead empty and dead-faced as it stared at the wall behind. It spoke up again, voice ghostly and strange.

“Even with all the money in the world…” it began, but when it closed its eyes Timms felt his own widen. He was unable to respond, his mouth full of saliva and vomit. The drugs moved the wall out from behind him and he fell, his hands making contact with the filthy cold tiles. Fixated on the mirror he scrambled back, watching the face that was not his own.

The man in the mirror with the hardened brown eyes and soft hair looked at him then, forcing Timms’ gut to twist in fear. The breathing in the room was harsh and quick, echoing like a bad record. The man in the mirror opened his soft mouth again, finally finishing his words.

“...You can't afford a well rested death.”

The floor turned out from under him, his body collapsing in on itself and his head as choppy as the sea.

Timms entered the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the second day of The October History Boys writing thing! It doesnt really have a name, but each Sunday in October there will (hopefully) be a new fan fiction.
> 
> Please leave kudos, bookmarks and comments!


End file.
